Stalley

For an aspiring rapper today, there are fewer blessings as potentially lucrative as an invite to Maybach Music Group’s roster. Over the years, Rick Ross has assembled an empire that oozes prosperity and churns out high-profile, high-octane rap at a relentless pace.

But there’s something different about Stalley, the bearded rapper who inked a deal with the imprint two years ago and has now been given time to shine with his first retail album OHIO. As well as name-checking his home city, the album’s name is an acronym for ‘Over Here I’m Original’. So, we put it to Stalley – what is it that makes him different to your average rapper? “My sound, my voice and my story that I tell – everything,” he argues, “down to the way I dress. Everything is original and unique.” OHIO has its bangers of course, and a headphones listen suggests that the album’s sessions probably took place in the kind of studio that only a juggernaut label like Maybach can afford to book. But while luxurious-feeling tracks like Free delve into to the kind of blockbuster gangster flick imagery and alpha-male fantasies usually associated with the MMG brand, Stalley’s ethos is ‘Intelligent Trunk Music’ – deep, socially-aware but big-sounding rap songs that make you bounce but leave you with something to think about. “My influences are artists like Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye; Nas, Bruce Springsteen,” he tells us. “Listening to how they told their story and how they painted pictures of the neighbourhoods and communities they grew up in, I just wanted to do the same thing, I’ve seen how positive this kind of thing is to their communities, but also to the world.”

Since dropping his debut mixtape in 2008, Stalley’s also walked an interesting path during his gradual ascent, which saw him participating in the 2010’s Iron Mic tournament in Beijing. “The performance was great, the energy was amazing, the crowd was amazing, you know, to be all the way in Beijing and for people to know the music, and the crowd to rap along,” he remembers fondly. “With most of them not even speaking English but knowing the music, me coming from a small town in Ohio and traveling that far; knowing that the music is reaching that community and the people over there and touching them in a way that is positive – it was a feeling I couldn’t even imagine.”

So, as a man whose boosted the careers of artists such as Meek Mill, French Montana, Wale, Gunplay and Fat Trel, what kind of advice has Rozay being giving Stalley so far? “Just do me. Just to be myself. To stand for what I believe in and stay consistent. He always said no-body is like you so continue to do you and be yourself”. And while thought-provoking, morally complex lyrics aren’t always commercially viable, Stalley assures us that he’s not had to compromise one bit. “This is what I like to do because I feel like hip-hop all sounds the same these days, but with my album, I give you something that hip-hop hasn’t heard for ever. It’s good to have someone like Ross help me get that out to the world.”